DIP STATEMENT ON EVENTS UNFOLDING IN TURKEY

* Heroes of the Gezi rebellion, this is the time for solidarity! The Kurdish children who die are the brothers of Berkin!

* Pesh merga and PKK guerrillas to Kobanê!

* Fight ISIL, an enemy not only of the Kurds but also of the Alevis!

* For a general strike of the workers and public employees against the killings and war-mongering of the ISIL and the AKP!

The demonstrations in Kurdish cities as well as the major cities in the western part of Turkey protesting against the prospect of the ISIL taking over the city of Kobanê in one of the three cantons of Rojava (Syrian Kurdistan) and massacring whole sections of the city’s civilian population with the active complicity of the AKP government in Turkey are wholly and unquestionably legitimate. The government has responded by implementing an undeclared state of emergency, putting the army on the streets in the downtown areas of many cities, including parts of Istanbul, condoning the murderous attacks of the Kurdish Hezbollah (no relation to its Shiite namesake in Lebanon) in Kurdistan and the fascists in Turkey proper on the Kurdish masses solidarising with Kobanê, and having the police, the army, and the “baltadjis” of Erdogan shoot to kill the demonstrators. More than two dozen people have been killed in less than three days, equal to twice the number of casualties of the Gezi rebellion in at least six months’ time.

So soft on the murderers of the ISIL, extending them logistical support and turning a blind eye as its combatants make Swiss cheese of the border between Syria and Turkey, the AKP government has no tolerance to show to the Kurdish demonstrators. The Home Minister of Tayyip Erdogan threatens the masses and incites the police to further violence by stating “all violence will be returned with more violence”, thus making it clear that the government sees itself unbound by laws. The AKP government should immediately stop killing the people and withdraw its civil war organisations such as the Hezbollah from the streets! It should retract the de facto state of emergency and stop preventing the Kurdish people and those who solidarise with it voicing its rightful demands!

The deputy prime minister, a protégé of Tayyip Erdoğan, has dubbed the Kurdish demonstrators “vandals”. This is the same language used against the Gezi rebels, called “chapulists” (“plunderers”) by the then prime minister Tayyip Erdoğan (now president of the republic). The civilian thugs with wooden bats who killed demonstrators during the Gezi rebellion, so similar to Mubarak’s “baltadjis”, are back on the streets! The tear gas canisters that killed many demonstrators during the Gezi rebellion are now taking Kurdish lives! Y.Ç., the 17-year old youth killed by the police in the Kurdish town of Siirt, is a brother to Berkin Elvan, the 15-year martyr of Gezi! Heroes of the Gezi people’s rebellion! This is the day for solidarity! Let us hold the government accountable for the loss of all our martyrs, then and now. Chapulists, to the squares of the cities in the west of the country, now!

The Kurdistan Regional Government under Massoud Barzani has adopted a clearly reactionary position. It has sealed the gates that lead to Rojava! It looks away while the brothers and sisters in Syria of the Kurds of Iraqi Kurdistan are being massacred. The people of Southern Kurdistan must hold Barzani accountable for these crimes! Let the pesh merga, the armed forces of Iraqi Kurdistan brave Barzani and march on Kobanê together with the guerrilla forces of the Kurds of Turkey to sweep the ISIL away!

Do not expect salvation for the people of Kobanê from the US imperialists nor from Erdoğan’s AKP. The one will sow further seeds of discord in the Middle East, pitting nation against nation and creed against creed so as to better be able to rule over the peoples of this most coveted region with abundant resources of oil and natural gas. The other, if it ever moves, will do it so as to better enslave all the Kurds of the Middle East in the future.

The AKP government under Tayyip Erdoğan is engaged in a headlong plunge into war in the Middle East. Dreaming of hegemony over the Arab world, it pursues a policy of Sunni sectarianism against the Shia and the Alevis, burning to bring down Beshar al Assad of Syria and provoking a dangerous Sunni-Alevi rift inside Turkey itself. It cannot tolerate the enjoyment of even a modicum of freedom by the Kurds and so is desperately trying to bring the Kurds of Rojava down on their knees. For all of this and more it is preparing to wage war.

It is not Bilal, the notorious son of Erdoğan, who is going to die on the battlefields of the Middle East. Nor is it the sons of the capitalist magnates of the holding companies that control the Turkish economy, be they of the Westernising-secular or of the Islamist brand. It is the sons of the workers and the peasants. Let us stop the war drive! Let us make the government motion that was recently passed by parliament dead letter!

Vanguard workers should fight for a general strike against the prospect of massacre to be implemented by the forces of the ISIL on the masses of Kobanê and the repression of the protests inside Turkey!
Down with the bat-wielding thugs that roam the streets just like those in Egypt, especially during the post-coup years! Down with the Hezbollah bands!

Down with the ISIL, together with imperialist intervention, as well as the sending of Turkish troops to Kobanê!

The idea of a buffer zone and a no-fly zone within, insistently demanded by the AKP government, is an invitation to death on battle fronts for the children of the working-class. Reject the war-mongering of the AKP government!

The Gordian knot in Turkey and the Middle East will be cut by the forces of the working class. Forward to a general strike against war and massacre!